10 Years of Guitar Advice in under 10 minutes.

when I first wanted to learn how to solo the first thing I did was learn this [Music] scale and the second thing I did was crash and burn all over that scale until I finally realized I can't make anything Musical come from it I was extremely frustrated that I couldn't make that scale sound interesting or cool just like my favorite guitar players that use the exact same scale and it took me about a decade after that to finally realize that scales are meant to be tools and their usefulness only goes about as far as your

ability to use them so in this lesson I'm going to give you some advice that's going to save you a decade of frustration this is the stuff that IID wish someone had told me years and years and years ago but as always remember to stick around to the very end of the video because I've got a free gift for you and your guitar you're both going to love it so we've established that scales are tools now let's talk about how to actually use them well like I said this is the first scale that I learned

and I think this is the first scale that most guitar players learn that want to start soloing it's the pentatonic scale and this one in particular is the a minor pentatonic scale if you don't already know it it's fifth fret eighth fret on low E fifth 7th on a d and g and then fifth fret eighth fret on B and high e so typically when a guitar player learns a scale like this myself included we just kind of walk it up and [Music] down but that in itself isn't musical it's just conveying information just telling

you exactly the tonality of what scale I'm playing so it's information it's not really music so if we want to make a scale like this musical the first thing we got to do is identify where the root notes are now in this particular a minor pentatonic pattern there are three root notes the first one is right here on the fifth fret of low E and then the second one it's in a middle octave it's here on the seventh fret of the D string and then the higher octave is on the fifth fret of the high

E string [Music] so we have three a notes a a a in three different octaves now a being the root note or the tonic you can consider that the most important note because it's what essentially signifies what tonality this whole scale is about so the first thing we got to do is learn how to make these root notes feel good how can we make them musical just the root notes what I'm going to do next is throw on a metronome and I'm just going to play those root notes and give them some Rhythm just kind

of see what it sounds like [Music] so pretty simple but it was musical it was more musical than just walking the scale up and down I was just adding some Rhythm to those root notes and you know kind of got a little bit of a Vibe going cuz you want to think of it this way if you can make the root notes sound good then if you start adding in other notes in the scale you're going to be able to make them sound good as well what we're going to do is we're going to start

adding in the other notes from the pentatonic scale but but we're going to actually segment it out into three boxes where those three root notes are they're each going to have a box surrounding them that reflects the tonality of the a minor pentatonic so check this out we're going to have this first box right here so the first four notes of that scale pattern fifth fret eighth fret on low E fifth fret seventh fret on a and our root notes right here so that's our first box the second box is right here in the middle

it's the fifth and seventh Frets of the d and g strings and we have our root note right here and then finally the upper octave box we have 58 58 on B and high e and then our root note right here so what we have now is the a minor pentatonic scale broken up into three boxes each with their own root note that we can treat as a safety net so what I'm going to do now is I'm going to throw that metronome back on and I'm going to play through the scale but I'm going

to focus on one box at a time try and give it that same musical Vibe I did with those root notes [Music] oh [Music] what's great about that metronome is instead of focusing on just playing on the click I was just trying to use it as like a drum Loop just kind of inspire a rhythm and playing around it and making sure I'm staying in time but in a way that metronome kind of forced me to stay in the pocket and just really milk those notes and get actual use out of them and just by

breaking them up into those three chunks those three boxes each with their own root note that we can use as kind of a home base you know with each moment that we're spending within the those boxes we're able to play something a lot more Musical and a lot more deliberate than just walking the scale up and down I'm telling you it's really that simple to get use out of a scale by just attacking it one chunk at a time focusing on the root notes in the beginning and then just graduating into using those other notes

so that you can play something that you're happy with that actually feels good and with how simple this whole approach is it makes it all the more frustrating that it took me 10 years to figure it out but anyway I digress my whole purpose here is to save you that same frustration and show you exactly what you need to make the pentatonic skill actually fun and actually useful by the way if you're getting value out of this lesson do me a favor hit that like button and consider subscribing to our YouTube channel this is a

quick and easy way to let us know that you want to see more lessons just like this one so I thank you in advance and let's get right back to it now once you've spent some time with this approach and you've kind of built up a habit to where you're no longer just walking up and down the scale you're actually going through it one box at a time and making it work and making it feel good what you're going to want to do in addition to that is have three tempos to set your metronome to

to practice this with this is going to get you comfortable using the scale at different speeds I recommend you use these three tempos 60 76 and 100 beats per minute those three tempos will cover a lot of ground let me show you starting with our slow tempo here's 60 beats per minute [Music] moving on to our medium Tempo here is 76 beats per minute [Music] and then finally for our uptempo here's 100 beats per minute obviously you want to work your way up gradually to get to this tempo [Music] [Music] so just by taking this

approach of attacking the skill one chunk at a time each with a root note contained within making those notes feel good and then eventually just bringing it all together and I guarantee you if you're able to make notes feel good with just a metronome imagine how great they're going to feel when you're throwing it over a backing track or if you're jamming with a buddy or even going to a local Jam you're already going to be equipped to to hold your own in those situations and this goes without saying but take your time with it

and just chew on it for a while until it really makes sense like I said all we're doing is taking a scale that you likely already know if not you've just learned it and then just taking it one chunk at a time focusing on those root notes starting with making them sound good even if it's just adding a little rhythm to them over a metronome and then just start adding those additional notes it's automatically going to sound better and sound more Musical and more deliberate than just walking up and down the scale mechanically and that

my friend is going to set you on track for using scales not just playing them actually using them to get what you want and we've only covered the a minor pentatonic scale today imagine being able to take what you've learned and apply it to any key well it just so happens that what I'm about to give you is the exact thing that's going to show you how to do that in a record time and here it is right here this is the most comprehensive lesson on the internet on how to instantly Solo in any key

within minutes you're going to be able to find any key on your fretboard play the same scale pattern that we've just went over today and instantly start soloing it's amazing I'm super proud of it and it's yours absolutely free just be sure to click here to claim your copy or check the link in the description box there's a big difference between knowing a scale and knowing how to use a scale and after today what you've learned is actually going to apply to any skill that you learn from now on [Music]